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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28037640">It Always Leads to You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsodarling/pseuds/notsodarling'>notsodarling</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>no more keepin' score [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Christmas, Happy Ending, M/M, Miscommunication, Two Idiots Who Just Need To Talk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:09:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,662</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28037640</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsodarling/pseuds/notsodarling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael and Alex get a Christmas tree so they can celebrate the holiday together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Michael Guerin/Alex Manes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>no more keepin' score [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057037</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It Always Leads to You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from "Tis the Damn Season" by Taylor Swift</p><p>Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Christmas had never been a happy holiday for Michael. Especially growing up in the system. When he'd come back to Roswell, after he'd found Max and Isobel, they'd tried to include him in their festivities. But for the kid who was bounced around the system, who lived out of his truck so he didn't have to spend the nights in a house he didn't feel welcome in, Christmas was a reminder of how much he wasn't wanted, and how he never fit in.</p><p>"You've never had a real Christmas before?"</p><p>The shocked sadness in Alex's voice was exactly why Michael was fine with not celebrating it, and especially with not telling anyone. He tries not to dwell on how much Alex has believed he <em>should</em> have experienced as a child and didn’t.</p><p>"But I was here during the holidays, we'd seen each other, you always said-"</p><p>Michael rolls his eyes. "I lied."</p><p>It had been easier those times Alex had been back on leave, when he'd shown up at the junkyard, knocking on the door of the Airstream, asking Michael what his plans for Christmas were. And he'd always answer that he would be with Max and Isobel. In the end, Alex hadn’t spent the night, and Michael knew he had no way of knowing that Michael wasn’t actually going anywhere on Christmas Day.</p><p>Christmas is only a few days away, and now they're standing in the middle of a field full of fully grown trees, ready to chop one down and haul it back to Alex's house. It had been Alex's idea, something he'd whispered into the space between them as they lay in bed at night. And Michael was more than content to just go along with however Alex planned on celebrating the holidays.</p><p>"Holidays were for family," he continues, not liking the hurt look on Alex's face, needing to fix it. "Back then, I didn't believe I had one."</p><p>"But you had Max and Isobel-"</p><p>"They had a family, they had parents who loved them. I was just the kid nobody wanted, and no one adopted." He glances around, pointing the saw in his hand at one of the trees close to Alex. "What about that one?"</p><p>Alex shakes his head, and they keep walking.</p><p>Not far from the one Alex had just rejected, Alex stops, walking all around a tree, eyes inspecting the branches, a smile slowly creeping across his face. Michael watches him reach out and feel the needles, the smile never fading.</p><p>"This one," Alex announces. "What do you think?"</p><p>Michael shrugs. "It's your tree, Alex."</p><p>The smile fades from Alex's face, but Michael watches as he turns back toward the tree and nods. "This one."</p><p>He drops the blanket on the snow, falling to the ground and scooching himself under the branches to get the teeth if the saw working against the wood of the base of the tree. Once it's cut, he ties a rope to the trunk, so they can pull it back to his truck to take it back to Alex's house.</p><p>Once the tree is safely in the bed of the truck, Alex reaches out and grabs his hand, stopping him from walking towards the driver's seat, and Michael turns to look at him. Alex is a vision, with a beanie on, a scarf tied tight around his neck to keep the chill out, his winter jacket zipped shut - and his cheeks stained a beautiful rosy red from the December cold.</p><p>"I can’t believe you never had a real Christmas before."</p><p>Michael sighs, not really wanting to talk about it. He's more than happy to go along with whatever Alex wants to do over the holidays.</p><p>"It's not a big deal," he insists. The last thing he needs or wants is for Alex is focus on him and forget to celebrate however he normally does. "If you're happy, I'm happy."</p><p>"Michael-"</p><p>"Let's just get the tree back to yours, okay?"</p><p>He leans in, pressing a kiss to Alex's cold cheek, and is surprised when Alex doesn't pull him back this time as he moves toward the driver's side.</p><p>The drive back is quiet, and when he glances over, he sees that Alex is focused on watching the world pass by through the window, he brow furrowed in concentration. Michael doesn't dwell too hard on it, doesn't ask what he's thinking about, just focuses back on the road instead.</p><p>They work in almost silence at Alex's, to get the three from the truck to the living room, in front of the window next to Alex's keyboard set up. Somehow they manage only to not spread pine needles all through the house, and Alex sweeps up the few easily. Michael works on adjusting the tree, gets it standing upright and straight in it's stand.</p><p>When he's done, as he steps back for one final check, he notices two boxes have appeared on the kitchen table - one labeled "tree lights" and the other "decorations." He pulls the lid off the box with the lights and gets to work, not waiting for Alex to reappear or give him instructions. He picks a string of soft white lights, nestling the wires in the branches, and wrapping then around to the top.</p><p>But Alex does reappear, immediately opening up the other box, pulling out decorations and ornaments as Michael works. He doesn’t pay close attention to the what until the lights are on the tree, and he’s standing back to make sure they look good, leaning back against the table near where Alex is standing.</p><p>“Thank you,” Alex says, turning to look at the tree. But it’s the lack of a smile on his face, the almost sad look in his eyes that has Michael reaching out and taking Alex’s hand pausing his movements in searching through the box in front of him. </p><p>“I was an asshole earlier,” Michael immediately replies, because he knows he was. Christmas isn’t something he’s ever celebrated, isn’t something he’s ever believed is for him.</p><p>Alex shakes his head. “I get it though. I just- I never knew.”</p><p>“Because I didn’t tell you.”</p><p>He watches Alex nod, turning back toward the box, continuing his search for something. He watches Alex pull out colored garland, and ornaments that look like they’re definitely from the Manes home and not something Alex has recently purchased in the time he’s lived in the house. Then, he watches as Alex pulls out a picture frame - it’s smaller than a normal size, much more akin to something you’d hang on a tree that wouldn’t kill the branches.</p><p>Alex holds it out to him.</p><p>“This is for you.”</p><p>Michael takes it, and gets a better look at the photograph - it’s the two of them. Seventeen and happy, guitars in hand, standing in the middle of the desert. Alex is focused on a chord progression on his guitar, and Michael is staring at Alex. It’s a photo he’s intimately familiar with, one that he has his own copy of, that he’s stared at more times than he can count.</p><p>“I left my copy with Maria when I enlisted, so nothing would happen to it. Because it was the only picture I had of the two of us.” Alex picks up some of the pile he’d made on the table, and turns around, crossing the living room, and dropping the contents on the sofa. Michael watches as he picks one thing - a string of garland - and starts to hang it on the branches. “And then my accident, and I moved back here, and my first Christmas in this house, I had that made. We weren’t together, we weren’t much of anything yet - but it was a reminder to myself.”</p><p>Michael’s fingers rub up against something on the back, and he flips the photo around to find duct tape, and something underneath. He peels back the tape, and pauses.</p><p>It’s a key.</p><p>“I didn’t know when we’d figure it all out, <em>if</em> we’d figure it out. I didn’t know if we’d ever end up together. But if we did, if we’d gotten to this point where we were together, and figuring <em>us</em> out, I thought one day I would ask.”</p><p>Michael’s gaze snaps to Alex.</p><p>“Ask me to move in?”</p><p>Alex nods, finishing with the garland on the tree, and walking back towards Michael, who hasn’t been able to move from where he’d been standing. Too distracted by what was happening, that Alex wasn’t angry at him for how he acted today, that he’d <em>planned this</em>.</p><p>“But this is <em>your home</em>. I can’t just-”</p><p>“It’s a house, Michael. It’s walls, and a roof, and place to rest my head at night. It didn’t feel like a <em>home</em> until I started waking up next to you in the morning.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>He gets it, because he feels the same way. The first time Alex had stayed the night, the first time Michael had woken up and Alex had been there, next to him, waiting for him to wake up, had been such a happy moment for him. One he’d wished he’d gotten more of at the time, because for a second he’d allowed himself to hope that there would be more of them. That it wouldn’t be the first, and only time, he’d get to wake up next to Alex.</p><p>Gently, he pulls Alex toward him, so they’re pressed together, and Michael drops the photograph on the table, key still half attached by the tape on the back, reaching up instead to take Alex’s face in his hands, leaning forward to press their lips together. </p><p>He hopes it’s enough of an answer for Alex.</p><p>Michael lets himself think of the future, of their future together, something that is always easier, and comes more naturally to him when he’s got Alex in his arms. There’s never been anyone else who has made him hope, made him believe Earth could be home, the way Alex has. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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